


Your Beauty is Not Just a Mask

by threewalls



Category: KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: 1582, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Community: kink_bingo, Drag Queens, Identity Issues, M/M, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 19:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kame doesn't have favourite clients, but if he did, Aquaneesha, the shy junior salaryman who stumbled into Kame's peep-show booth looking for crossdressing advice would be it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mirokkuma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirokkuma/gifts).



> Written for nounou, who prompted "Akame, Undisclosed Desires/Muse", and also matching my roleplay square for kink_bingo.
> 
> Thanks to lynndyre for beta, and especially encouraging me to write a happier ending.

"You'll want to hurry up," Koki says. 

Kame halts in front of the counter and raises his perfectly sculpted eyebrows, all the response Koki is going to get. He's on time for his shift, if not a little early, even with all the prep time he needs. Kame knows exactly how long he'll take. His garment bag weighs on his shoulder.

"Your favourite's early," Koki sing-songs. 

"He's not my-- They're all my favourites," Kame corrects himself. 

The store's quiet, only one guy browsing the DVDs in the far corner. Kame doesn't think the guy looks like he'd be one of his clients, but two years have taught Kame that you could never actually tell who you'd see when the shutter rolled up. 

"Of course," Koki says, and he's smirking despite the warning in Kame's expression. He and Koki are friends, but they have different ideas about what acting professional in a sex shop involves. "That's why you know exactly who I mean."

"It's Tuesday." 

"He's in two, because it was empty. And, yes, he knows you don't start for another thirty minutes."

Kame doesn't walk any faster into the back, doesn't give Koki the satisfaction. He doesn't skim on his prep time, either, the five minute shower and the five minutes with his forehead against the tiles taking deep, slow breaths as he works himself slick and at least a little relaxed. That's the last thing he expects Aquaneesha to ask him for, but Kame also doesn't expect Aqua-chan to buy out his whole six-hour shift, especially after already paying for half an hour before Kame even gets to the booth.

Kame's debuting a new costume tonight, a new persona, but he doesn't let that slow himself down. He's practiced this in his bedroom at home, the bandages wrapped tight around his torso, how to move to slide the brocade from his shoulder. The kimono is all polyester, the inside of the jacquard weave rougher than it looks, but he's going to be the only one who feels it against his skin. 

Most of the guys Kame knows who work the booths have a rotating wardrobe of costumes, but Kame tends to stick with the one until he feels done with it, which could be a short as one shift or as long as three months. Aqua-chan's first visit fell in the middle of Kame's slacker office temp phase, and he can still remember that first look of disappointment on Aqua-chan's face to find a guy who still looked like a guy on the other side of the glass. Kame likes to think that Aqua-chan doesn't regret that getting Kame instead of Tegoshi, that Tuesday, so many Tuesdays ago. Aqua-chan keeps coming back, after all.

Kame twists his hair up, with a practiced motion of his wrist, the tails on the pin brushing the back of his neck. Making his skin worth looking at takes up most of his make-up routine, but it always has, since he bought his first stick of concealer at twelve. The challenge is using products that won't melt off him in the booth. Most men won't pay to watch Kame re-apply his face.

He swears under his breath when his hand slips and he has to wipe off his second attempt at liquid liner, going through two wipes and then a cotton ball with cold cream to fix it. The clock on the backroom wall clicks with every second that passes, and it's hard not to think of Aqua-chan in the booth, alone, sitting with ankles crossed and staring at that absolutely hideous chunky watch. 

Kame's lucky he never planned to keep his lipstick within the outline of his lips. It's carmine, something whorish, or like blood. It's not what a woman would actually wear, back in the Sengoku period, or outside today, but that's not what Kame's aiming for. He's not wearing false breasts for the same reason. 

Layers on layers, it's not Kame's usual sort of costume. He's always tended boyish, a twink, the sort of costume he can put together from clothes he can buy without marking himself out as an entertainer: school boys and office workers, dock worker with a heart of gold, a boxer-- and then an actor cast as a boxer, because he needed to find a way to keep tiny, satin shorts as interesting for him as they were for his clients. Kame's personas have always tended bankable, safe. 

Kame knows how tall he is, and what it makes people think. It's something he actively fights in clubs, when he's looking to take someone home, but here, somehow, it's always been different. It's work, and being _exactly_ what someone wants is a different kind of pleasure for Kame. 

His robes weigh on his arms as Kame shuffles down the corridor to the booth.

Aqua-chan stands up when Kame walks in. It's a new wig today, dark instead of turquoise, and shorter. Either Aqua-chan bought a more expensive wig, or-- now that Kame's looking for it, he's sure. He's looking at Aqua-chan's real hair, the office worker cut from four months ago grown out. From this side of the glass, it looks like it would be soft to touch.

"Wow," Aqua-chan says. "You look-- just wow." 

Kame doesn't have favourite clients, but he likes that it's easy to know what Aqua-chan wants, what Kame needs to do so that Aqua-chan can't stop delight from lighting up his face.

"I thought it was time to retire Shizuku." Daddy issues and alcohol: Kame had thought that would play better with the clients than it did, even if a lot of them liked him in the suits.

"So, what should I call you? This you?"

"You could call me Nohime..." Kame says, turning in place with one hand holding the edges of his outer robe shut. With his back fully turned to face Aqua-chan, he looks back over his shoulder. He can see his reflection hanging there between them, like a ghost on Aqua-chan's side of the glass.

Kame grips the brocade, and pulls, and it's just like he practiced, red, pink and gold sliding down to reveal the black robe beneath "--but I'd prefer Ranmaru."

Ranmaru should have a sword girt at his hip, but Kame knows how clients think. Even a fake sword would be asking for trouble. Kame has dildos for that. "Morii Ranmaru. He was the cherished... I've told you this before."

It's not a problem Kame usually has, because with most men, even his other regulars, he's always playing someone new. 

"You have," Aqua-chan says, but he's just grinning. Like it's a pleasure to catch Kame out with something as silly as this. "But you look amazing. Ranmaru."

"You look good yourself," Kame says, and something in Kame's chest tightens, watching Aqua-chan look down and then up at Kame through long, dark lashes, flush blooming over pretty cheeks and neck. He hadn't needed to coach Aqua-chan on body language. 

Aqua-chan's eyes are dark and defined, lips perfectly outlined, and foundation shaded to soften the line of his jaw. He's wearing black, long sleeves but a deep neckline, something that sparkles, belted over his hips, and ends in a short, flared skirt. Aqua-chan has been hiding some very lovely legs under all those suit trousers. They look like they would be soft to touch, too. 

"I've been practicising," Aqua-chan says, stepping forward, face almost pressed against the glass. "With a business card. To keep the liner even. Like you showed me."

He turns, giving Kame an extreme close-up of the side of his face. He has a mole under his right eye, and has no idea how beautiful he is. Aqua-chan doesn't move in the dress like it's his first time. That he's practiced, too, is not something Kame can let himself notice. 

Aqua-chan usually comes by later in the evening. After work, Kame has always assumed, given the suits he's always been dressed in and the fact that the earrings that appeared a few weeks ago are the clip-on kind. He's come so far from that first Tuesday, when he'd taken thirty minutes of stuttering and staring to talk himself into saying: "my friends, they sometimes call me Aquaneesha, like a joke, you know, because I can sing the girl songs at karaoke? Except it isn't, for me, a joke, I mean, maybe. I don't know. Is it dumb that I don't know?"

Today's Aquaneesha is jittery, too, keeps rubbing his palms against the fabric on his thighs, but it's good news, Kame can tell. 

Kame apologises for keeping him waiting, but Aqua-chan just waves all that away, and his smile, as he thinks what to say, is incandescent. "I-- I quit my job." 

The knot in Kame's chest drops into his stomach, then, loosening in the rush of the rest of Aquaneesha's words. Aquaneesha has always wanted a confidant, and that's a role Kame knows exactly how to play.

Aquaneesha told his parents on the weekend, told them "everything," and his mom bought him dresses to try. The one he's wearing is his favourite. He says he wanted Kame to see it. 

Kame makes all the right noises in all the right places, smiling as his eyes memorise the way Aquaneesha's hands fidget with his hair and the cuffs of his sleeves. Aquaneesha has beautiful hands.

His rental contract is up for renewal at the end of the month, and when his mother asked him to visit, it had seemed like a sign. Everything Aquaneesha owns is outside in his car. He's moving back to live with his parents. 

"So, this is the last time I can come here."

Aquaneesha's smile falters as the silence stretches, as Kame tries to remember not to lick his lips. It's not a surprise to hear Aquaneesha say that, so Kame's not clear why the words of reassurance that usually come so easily to him aren't ready in his mouth. He's had too much practice to only be able to think of things he shouldn't say.

The shutter starts coming down, metal grinding on rails, and that's normal, that happens all the time, but Aquaneesha isn't leaping for his wallet to feed another bill into the machine. 

"I -- I need to go," he says, and it's that same creeping look of terror on his face that's so familiar to Kame. "The drive. I've got pretty far to go. I should--"

He stands, and Kame stands with him, and they both bend, because the shutter's already past the level of his eyes. 

Kame tells Aqua-chan to talk to Koki, the guy at the counter in the shop, about the clubs where waitressing only means waitressing. That it's all word of mouth-- and Aqua-chan says he thought about bussing tables in his home town first, taking the time to master more girl stuff before he tries to make a living like this.

They're shouting at each other, shouting over each other, but the walls of the booth are sound-proofed. The shutter isn't, but once it slides past the speaking grate, cock-height, mouth-height, Aqua-chan's voice is too garbled through the metal to understand.

Kame follows Aqua-chan down, pushing his chair back as he drops to the floor, robes crumpling around him. Aqua-chan's pretty dress folds under his knees. 

His lips slowly and carefully mouth something that Kame's still struggling to parse when Aqua-chan's neck bends, lowering his head. The last Kame sees is Aqua-chan's folded hands on the floor. He'd painted his nails.

Kame sits back onto his feet, his own heartbeat loud in the sudden silence. Ranmaru's robes sit stiff around him. He stands up carefully, adjusting and smoothing the heavy fabrics with hands that know this costume well enough to dress him in the dark, staring up wide-eyed at the mottled ceiling until the urge to ruin his make-up has passed.

"Thank you." That's what he thinks that Aquaneesha said, but Aquaneesha is not paying for Kame's time or performance any longer.

Nohime knows the ache of being the one who tends greatness only to see it walk out into the night; Ranmaru knows that he won't be the one who is left behind. The hurt inside him glows brighter and fiercer as Kame folds the feeling up inside his chest, re-making it into something with sharp creases, something he can use.

By the time the metal shutter groans upwards again, Kame is centred once more, perfectly, artfully posed behind the ceramic mask he had not had the chance to show Aquaneesha. Professional. 


	2. Chapter 2

"They like the vampires," Kame says.

"I know," Tackey agrees. "That's why I'm asking for a revised version for the fall programme, not a completely new idea. Keep the costumes-- keep most of the choreography if you can make it fit a new concept."

"And keep the backup dancers?" Kame asks. 

Kame likes cabaret, and it seems to like him a lot, too, but he hasn't got to headline his own segment six nights a week without the support of men who have been in this business for far longer than he is. He has boys counting on him to ensure they still have a job two months from now. 

"Could you incorporate a duet?" Tackey asks, and Kame guesses that this is what Tackey has been directing the last fifteen minutes of conversation towards.

"You have someone in mind," he says and it's not a question.

There's a performer they've recently acquired from a competitor's chorus line, someone Tackey and Tsubasa both think could headline, but he alternates between an almost naïve confidence and crippling nerves, so they want to try him out with a more experienced partner first.

"He's got a beautiful voice," Tackey says. "You'd harmonise well. And I think you'd get along. He's high concept, too. When I asked for suggestions for a solo, guess what the first thing he said was?"

Kame bites his lip, thinking, and waits for Tackey to stop watching him knowingly and to speak.

"Pirates," which is exactly what Kame had said when Tackey first asked him the same question.

Tackey's chorus singer has been waiting outside the whole time. He's the leggy brunette Kame passed on his way into Tackey's office. A dress of well-fitting teal sequins has splits that start high on his thighs and stretch barely as far as his knees. If Kame's come from back stage after seeing all the technical staff home, his hypothetical partner's clearly come from work without changing. He's got pretty ankles tucked into strappy silver sandals with low heels, a fur bolero that obscures the true width of his shoulders, and that mole under his right eye, still.

Four years after the fact, Kame realises he'd never taken Aquaneesha's claims to be "good at karaoke" at more than face value.

Through Tackey's introductions, Aquaneesha's face is paler than powder and his lips are frozen half-way to a smile. He looks even less composed when Tackey leaves him in his office, with an hour deadline to come up with a new concept for Kame's segment. Their segment.

Watching Aqua-chan fidget with his hair, now grown well past his shoulders, brings Kame a well-spring of nostalgia even as he compresses those feelings under his professional façade. Considering how they know each other, and who they were then, he can understand not wanting to be reminded of the past.

With a complete stranger, Kame would have offered him the choice of Tackey's wet bar, but he remembers Aquaneesha telling him that he'd stopped drinking after waking up next to his (female) mentor, naked, and with no memory of how he'd got there. Rather than ask, Kame makes tea. It busies him with something that requires facing away, and when he's poured two cups, he lets Aquaneesha sip his while Kame outlines the mechanics of his current act.

"I've seen it," Aquaneesha admits, but only after Kame's finished. He delicately sets down his cup. "I was in the audience last Tuesday. It's my night off."

Kame can't remember last Tuesday's performance, so he can only assume everything went perfectly. He wonders how long Aquaneesha's been back in Tokyo-- before the summer started, definitely, but how many months-- if he went to the old shop. Kame hasn't gone back there in years, not since he and Koki both handed in their resignations. His skin prickles, as he tries not to think about the fact that Aquaneesha has been so close and Kame didn't know.

"So, what have we got?" Kame asks, bringing them back to business. "Take a guy in black suit, black cape, red lining. Add...?"

"An impressionable ingénue?" 

Aquaneesha bats his long, dark eyelashes at Kame, who is struck by the difference Aquaneesha's confidence in his own beauty makes. Kame works in an industry full of men prettier and/or more built than he is, but either of those alone is not what it takes to catch Kame's attention.

"I'm thinking Phantom of the Opera," Aquaneesha says. "A new singer, tempted by a more experienced man. We could work it."

"We'd never get the rights." 

"Not the musical. The story. We can use different songs."

"We can get you something long and white."

"And a mask for you," Aqua-chan says, and then gasps.

It's only then that Kame realises that he's holding Aqua-chan's hand, and instead of the courteous space that had been between them when they'd sat down, his knees have insinuated themselves between Aqua-chan's. This close, Kame can see where his pearly white thigh-high stockings stop.

"Vanilla," Aqua-chan says, and Kame can only stare at Aqua-chan's shy smile, marvelling at how warm his hand is. "I'd wondered what you smelled like.

"It is you, isn't it? Yuya? Uh-- Ranmaru?" he asks, and the space between Kame's shoulder blades loosens as he nods in answer, and the flood of words from Aqua-chan that follows is so familiar that Kame's heart aches. 

"I wanted to -- I need to thank you," Aqua-chan says. They're sitting too close for him to bend completely, but he drops his chin to his chest. 

"If I hadn't met you, I don't know where I'd be. I don't know if I'd-- Look, I had the courage to leave my job and try to get a job where I could be me instead of this guy I'd been pretending to be since my best friend turned me down in high school. And I just-- thank you, thank you so much."

"No, no. It's ok." Kame repeats that until Aqua-chan notices the way Kame's waving his free hand. 

"I used to think that the best I could hope for was reflecting back other people's fantasies. I met someone who made me realise that I'd rather show people my own."

"That's-- great," Aqua-chan says, drawing his eyebrows together.

"I mean you," Kame says, and Aquaneesha's full smile is as beautiful as Kame remembers it. 

"So we're even, ok, Aqua-chan?"

"It's Jin," he mumbles. "Akanishi Jin. My friends weren't that imaginative."

"Kamenashi Kazuya," Kame says, bowing his head over their linked hands. "Pleased to meet you."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very welcome here. You can also comment at [my LJ](http://threewalls.livejournal.com/357940.html) or [my DW](http://threewalls.dreamwidth.org/198871.html).


End file.
